[dav1111]

I lost in flight one of the U-1024's (page 48-17) attached to the 1013C, bracket along with the mounting screw (allen head) and lock washer. I am not sure what caused the loss but no damage occured.

I have since drilled the heads of the two mounting screws and drilled a safety wire hole in the two 1013C's so that I can safety wire the two mounting screws to the mounting bracket and this cannot happen again. I drilled the heads in two 90 degree locations so that when I safety wire I can run the wire from either the top or bottom of the screw head and the tow bar will not sub on the safety wire while moving the airplane.

If both U-1024's had come loose and the 1013C mounting brackets had both slide back I could have suffered major damage to the nose wheel pant on landing.

My assumption is that while moving the RV-10 with the two bar the two bar pressure caused the mounting screw to back off the lock washer enough that during flight the vibration caused the screw to back out far enough to drop off the U-1024 into somebody's pasture.

 

[dav1111]

RV-10 Nose Wheel Safty Issue Update

I lost in flight one of the U-1024's (page 48-17) attached to the 1013C,
bracket along with the mounting screw (Allen head) and lock washer. No damage occurred on landing.

I had originally thought about drilling the heads of the two mounting screws and safety wire to the 1013C's but after drilling the heads I decided that the better method was to drill down through the U-1024, through the mounting screw, and then run the safety wire back to the 1013 bracket. It worked great. I didn't have my camera at the airport so I failed to get any pictures.

If both U-1024's had come loose and both 1013C mounting brackets had
shifted back I could have suffered major damage to the nose wheel pant and possible to the gear leg fairing on landing.

My assumption is that while moving the RV-10 with the tow bar the tow
bar pressure caused the mounting screw to back off the lock washer
enough that during flight the vibration caused the screw to back out far
enough to drop off the U-1024 into somebody's pasture.

A smart move would be to check the tightness of the screw with an Allen wrench after each use of a Tow Bar to move the airplane or to safety wire as above.